hmmmm....and what about Portugal? Now such tradition?

And I admit, I have no idea where this tradition comes from ;)

No. It is the standard western weddings: church, bride, photos, food, dance, cake.

Are you sure? Are you really sure? Are you sure that you are sure? Are you sure about that you are sure about being sure?

No big stick involved? ;)

Ah, thank you. That makes much more sense than my translation of "Add more ostrich to rudimentary macara with a side of beef noses, false tongues, and swearing green piñatas made of socks".

In that case, how can it be a celebration?
...they do LOOK out the window before throwing, right? o_O
I think that comes AFTER the wedding.
Edit: Good Lord. I've been on this place too long. Now I'M starting to make innuendo jokes.

You United Statesians, you kill me.

I think you just watched too much of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge9HiWdGBOo

(ignore the German, just saying about celebrating KNUT ;) )
Why shall they?

unlike people in the US they are used to watch out 360*360 ;)

Ever driving in Portugal? OK, really, and I mean really not as bad as Italy or France!!!!!!!!

To make sure they clock in the 5 points they get for every pedestrian they hit, 3 points for every squirrel, and 10 points for every car?
Knuthing about that made sense.

Sorry no squirrels, just Surströmming. And if you don't finish this, means -50 points!

OK, OK, you got me there. Here you go. Or more seriously, this one (but that is from Brazil!).

Oh, I do hope people look before they throw stuff out the window, but I believe accidents may have happened. ;-)

This raises some questions: can't you accidentally hit a passer by on the face while opening the door? Also, what about snow? Doesn't the snow pile up in front of your door preventing you from opening it?

Actually wrong thinking!

Imagine you are snowed in, you open the door, what will happen?

And the Finnish are even more protective of their privacy as some other folks, the main question is, WTF have you got to do in front of my door ;).

I saw the same thing in Japan. The main problem I see is in principle:

If it's a house with a yard, fine, but if it's an apartment then when you open the door your private property (your door) will be taking up public space (the hallway).

That's the reason why in my house we had to put glass blocks in the kitchen instead of a window that opens outwards. Because even though the neighbouring property is a house, and we are several stories high, we would be intruding upon his property.

I guess we don't tend to throw a door wide open at full force when going outside, but open it a bit more slowly.

Likewise, people probably don't tend to walk right next to the wall either so that they'd instantly get hit by a door if it opened even a bit.

Frankly, I never recall this being an issue, either me hitting someone on their face with my door, or someone hitting me with their door. When people e.g. ring a doorbell in other countries, do they always stay their nose stuck to the door when waiting for it to open? :)

I never recall that being an issue either for some reason. Maybe we don't get that much snow then. :) More likely it is because the front doors are usually decked so snow doesn't really pile up right in front of the doors. For instance this is quite a common type of house in Finland:

http://asunnot.oikotie.fi/myytavat-asunnot/h%C3%A4meenlinna/13497921

or this older apartment house in a city:

http://asunnot.oikotie.fi/myytavat-asunnot/helsinki/13497617

As you can see their front doors are decked and also raised so there should really be snowing a lot (and no one ever sweeping the snow away) before it could block those doors. When we are thinking of apartment doors (which is what I was more thinking when writing about the doors), the hallways where those apartment doors are are usually indoors where snow is naturally not an issue.

On the other hand if we are talking about room doors inside the apartments and houses, they usually open inwards towards the rooms, except for bathrooms and toilets.

I like to pull my pants down and press my arse against those glass bricks.

It looks awesome from the other side, like a windscreen roadkill.